BmoreArt

The figures appear in a dream-like environment, sprawled across a warm, pillowy yellow background. The details of each body and what they are wearing are abstracted. This was a genuine surprise, as I expected to see references to flashy fabrics and fine tailoring. Instead, Turner’s figures are large swaths of two complementary color palettes: the warm, rich tones of reds, browns, and yellows of one figure harmonize with the cool, earthy combinations of greens and blues in the other. Subtly peeking through the loose, expressive brushstrokes and drips of paint making up each body are detailed vignettes of a nose, mouth, and hands. Painted with a soft but careful precision, these are the only naturalistic identity markers Turner provides.

When confronted with the question of what defines Black styling, “Us Against the World” showcases how the role of style in cultures across the diaspora transcends specific labels, trends, and even external perceptions of Blackness.

Curated by Cornelia Stokes, this thoughtful group exhibition featuring 10 US-based artists explores the complexities, contrasts, and beauty of life across the African diaspora through the lens of style and fashion. Showcasing a wide range of media, CoatTails highlights how Black style goes beyond a good suit. Each exhibiting artist—including Gabriel Chuks Amadi-Emina, Ka’os Armstrong, Aliana Grace Bailey, JUNKANEW PAPARAZZI, Zenobia Kelley, Lex Marie, Devin Morris, Taj Poscé, Shawn Theodore, and Khari Turner—shows that style is an essential mode of Black being and belonging.

Major exhibitions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current exhibit, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style and Africa Fashion, an exhibition honoring African designers and artists, on view in Chicago at the Field Museum, have limited their representations of Black style to North America, Europe, or the African Continent. Their story remains centered around clothes. Cornelia Stokes took a different approach when curating CoatTails.

Stokes’s interest in style began in 2019 while working on her Master’s thesis on American artist Amy Sherald. In relation to Sherald’s use of portraiture and fashion, Stokes writes, “[Amy] Sherald’s concern lies with the spirit and interiority of her figures, allowing a holistic view of the individual being…” Similarly, in curating CoatTails, Stokes demands that conversations about fashion must reflect the nuances of Black experiences.

“I am a Pan-Africanist, and everything I touch will include philosophies and teachings from the diaspora,” Stokes says. “This exhibition features artists with vast diasporic connections, including those from Nigeria and the Bahamas, enabling us to challenge our perceptions of what it means to be Black… as Black Americans, it has been driven [into] us to forget our proximity to other African descendants, but when we use culture to navigate that connection, we find familiarity in the most comforting ways.”

Stokes aims to reach across national, ethnic, and cultural divides to find moments of connection and strengthen the sense of community and solidarity between us. Attempting to address style as it relates to African communities, African Americans, Caribbean peoples, and beyond is ambitious. However, CoatTails asks visitors to consider what new perspectives and conversations arise when considering Blackness and style in a global setting.

Consider JUNKANEWPAPARAZZI’s photo of artist Jeffrey Meris at Junkanoo (2024). Among a colorful parade of people, Meris stands in the middle of a busy street. He is dressed in a self-made blue, white, and gold patterned suit, a combination of wavy, vertical stripes and lines of silver studs. With an oversized red tie and an even larger top hat and feather, Meris proudly holds a matching gold and blue umbrella in one hand and a scepter in the other. Hung under the rim of the umbrella, two banners read “Black Dandy” and “Met Gala 2025.”

Junkanoo is one of many distinct festivals created by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean during the 17th and 18th centuries. By merging trending conversations of historical Black menswear in America and Europe with the elaborate costuming of Junkanoo, Meris addresses the frequent marginalization of Caribbean traditions when discussing Black fashion. For him, Carnivals are often “reduced to parties and excuses for tourists to exotify the native population[s].” Meris’ practice, as well as JUNKANEWPAPARAZZI’s photograph, call upon viewers to reconsider Caribbean traditions and include them within the larger discussion of cultural and stylistic expressions.

CoatTails, further, places fashion in conversation with contemporary art. Featured works range from performance, photography, and digital collage to woven tapestries and abstract paintings. Taj Poscé’s distressed mixed media collage “Block Star Chic” (2023), which captures the spirit of 1960’s acid rock aesthetics, seems to be a complete contrast to Aliana Grace Bailey’s breathtaking and intricately woven textile, “golden yellow” (2022). When placed next to one another, the two pieces call to mind materiality, labor, and creative reuse.

“Yanga no dey make person fireproof” (2022) by Nigeria-American artist Gabriel Chuks Amadi-Emina explores the intersection of contemporary Nigerian culture, material consumption, and one’s sense of self in the world. Amadi-Emina shares, “Yanga no dey make person fireproof is a piece about accountability…how we use material things to avoid accountability. ‘Yanga’ in Nigerian slang refers to swagger. So when I say, ‘Yanga no dey make person fireproof,’ the swagger, your materials, or the things you’re associated with… doesn’t protect you from consequences.”

Performance and performativity are central themes throughout the exhibition. For the opening, Stokes collaborated with Notre Dame’s undergraduate student organization, Runway Divas and Dons, to host a student-led fashion show. “My curatorial practice has always been focused on students, local businesses, and creatives.” Stokes says. “Having a student component as a part of this exhibition not only felt necessary being that it is a college campus, but I also wanted students to feel included in what was happening around them.”

Zenobia Kelley’s “Scene 1” (2024) explores similar themes of performativity, Black style, and the construction of identity. In this self-portrait, Kelley poses in a wintry ensemble: a brown fur coat, opaque black stockings, and black kitten heels. It’s unclear whether the setting is outside or inside, but there is a subtle contrast between the artist’s appearance and the architecture around her. The smoothness of the large column behind her and the cold, reflective marble floor feel at odds with the warmth and softness of her appearance. With her leg lifted slightly behind her—one hand on the tip of her heel, held as if adjusting her shoe, and the other by her hair—Kelley imitates a body in motion, recalling popular “OOTD” (outfit of the day) TikToks and Instagram Reels.

With the use of a still image, however, “Scene 1” removes the candid facade found in this form of social media engagement and reveals its nature as a fabricated, highly intentional form of self-portraiture. Intentionality is a key element of Black style, where self-fashioning becomes a way to assert power over external perceptions. Like the models in the Runway Divas and Dons performance, the artist’s posture and gaze in “Scene 1” also reveal how style is a construct tied to and informed by the body.

Black styling is inherently tied to the Black body. With the wide range of external perceptions of Blackness that exist in our world—from Black is beautiful, to Black is trendy, to Black is dangerous—how can we control our own image? Kelley’s self-portrait reminds viewers that style is both what you wear and how you wear it, and can be a powerful form of reclamation.

In her mixed media pieces, “Under the Banner of Education” (2024) and “On the Yard” (2024), artist Lex Marie provides a sobering reflection on the American education system and the prison industrial complex. In “On the Yard”, Marie tightly stitches together several salvaged clothing items, stretching them across a rectangular canvas. A black short-sleeved polo shirt and full pair of khaki pants are framed in the center of the work. The small size and color of these items are similar to an elementary school student’s uniform. The uniform is divided vertically down the middle by a thick layer of fluorescent orange spray paint—becoming reminiscent of a prison jumpsuit.

When initially experiencing this work in the gallery, it feels disjointed from the feelings of celebration and empowerment found in the other artworks. How do these pieces relate to Black style? By using uniforms, both educational and carceral, Marie’s works speak to suppression of self-expression and loss of autonomy.

There is only one garment physically present in the gallery. On the back wall of the gallery to the right, you’ll find the work of Baltimore-born, New York based artist Devin N. Morris. Using reusable shopping bags, spray paint, color pencil and thread, Morris presents a quiet, yet powerfully poetic meditation in “Thank You For Being Here” (Dress) (2024). Vibrant, lime green and white cloth shopping bags were cut and stitched into a simple shift dress. With thick streaks of multicolored spray paint, Morris reworks the repeated phrase printed across each bag from, “Thank You for Shopping Here!” to, “Thank you for Being Here!”

The work could be understood solely as a commentary on the waste within the clothing industry and the future of fashion in response to climate change. However, in the context of celebrating Black styling, “Thank You For Being Here” (Dress) is a letter of gratitude and celebration.

By illuminating the connections, rather than separations, between art and fashion, CoatTails: Celebrating Black Life Through Style is expansive in its exploration of what style is and how it functions across the diaspora. Works hanging beside one another appear at first to be unrelated or in complete contrast. It is in this contrast and contradiction, however, that the richness and depth of Black experiences across the globe can be truly witnessed.

CoatTails: Celebrating Black Life Through Style is  on view at the Gormley Gallery through June 8, 2025. Notre Dame of Maryland University, 4701 Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210.